I've just been listening to Cooder's Jazz album- an lo and behold, this number comes up and I swear there's a mandolin part at the beginning (then guitar, then ? ). Anyone tab this out! Only Cooder tabs I've ever seen were Billy the kId! Is this Ryland doing this?
Eric Wall

Spruce

Apr-21-2005, 1:26pm

Love that record....

There is a video of that band recording of "Jazz" that I saw one night on PBS way back when...
Love to find a copy of that...

The tune I've always wanted to work out is Bix's "In a Mist"...
What a great tune, and it would sound great in a mando-quartet context...

mandroid

Apr-26-2005, 10:20pm

Ry has some tasty support laid in the mix with Ali Farka Toure, too..Talking Timbuktu.
the 'Ai Du' track.

Paul Hostetter

May-11-2005, 2:19am

Eric - you must be listening to a burned copy. Cooder is credited right there in the notes as playing mandolin, which he did on most of his earlier albums as well.

Cooder has gone out of his way at every opportunity to diss that album, which I have never been able to understand. I have always thought it was a wonderful effort.

Peter Hackman

May-17-2005, 12:36am

Love that record....

There is a video of that band recording of "Jazz" that I saw one night on PBS way back when...
Love to find a copy of that...

The tune I've always wanted to work out is Bix's "In a Mist"...
What a great tune, and it would sound great in a mando-quartet context...
I remember seeing the sheet music for Beiderbecke's
four piano compositions (Flashes, In the Dark, In a Mist,
Candlelights) in a public library. When I called this
library years later they couldn't locate it.
But the fact is it has been in print, and it has to
be *somewhere*.

POB

May-17-2005, 4:02am

Cooder has gone out of his way at every opportunity to diss that album, which I have never been able to understand.
Surprised to hear that. I regard that album as one of the little gems of my collection. I picked it up in a bargain bin a few years ago without ever having heard anything about it and was delighted with it when I got it home and played it. Any idea why Cooder dislikes it?

Paul Hostetter

May-17-2005, 4:28am

This is really old info, but I recall something to the effect that he had been leaned on by Warner Brothers to do a jazz album and they assigned him a producer they thought would produce a big-selling album and take him in a whole new direction. His musical sensibilities were evidently often at odds with the producer and it was not a smooth ride. Who knows what was really going on? I just remember some scathing remarks from Cooder.

AlanN

May-17-2005, 5:58am

What is Ry Cooder up to these days?

James P

May-17-2005, 11:33am

He and Manuel Galban's "Mambo Sinuendo" came out two years ago, but it was the album of summer '04 for me. #His next release is here: Chavez Ravine. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0009353IW/ref=m_art_li_3/103-1458935-7242200?v=glance&s=music#product-details)

Spruce

May-17-2005, 11:44am

"What is Ry Cooder up to these days?"

Ry is about to release a new CD called "Chavez Ravine" (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B0009353IW/002-4344275-3756809?v=glance#product-details), which deals with the displacement of an LA community to make way for Dodger Stadium back in the late 50's....

Here's the Amazon.com description....
Sounds interesting....

"Ry Cooder's Chavez Ravine is-a post-World War II-era American narrative of "cool cats," radios, UFO sightings, J.Edgar Hoover, red scares, and baseball.Using real and imagined historical characters, Cooder and friends creates an album that recollects various aspects of the poor but vibrant hillside Chicano cummunity, which was bulldozed by developed in the interest of "progress."

ericwall

May-17-2005, 3:33pm

Paul,the album says David Lindley plays mandolin- but maybe Ry played on this cut. And I take it there's no tab. Will have to tab it out myself! Didn't know he hated the album. I think it's a gem.
Thanks,
Eric

Paul Hostetter

May-17-2005, 5:49pm

On the notes to my copy of Jazz, the credits for The Pearls/Tia Juana read "Ry Cooder - guitars, mandolins, tiple, harp." I believe them. David Lindley plays mandolin and mandolin-banjo on a couple of other tracks. His playing is quite different than Ry's.

manjitsu

May-18-2005, 9:56am

Regarding Ry's feelings about the Jazz album, here's a quote from an interview with him in Mandolin World News, Winter 79-80:

"...I don't care for it too much, but I learnerd a lot doing it. It has the feel of an experimental record, something not quite complete about it, y'know. But I like string band music, and it was an interesting sort of stab at that, but that's not really my best ability.

I've certainly always liked this album myself.

Regards,

Chris Rorrer

Paul Kotapish

May-18-2005, 8:00pm

I like Cooder's Jazz, too, and I've always been surprised that he didn't like it. I had a chance to see Ry play a live solo show just about the time that LP came out, and he did several solo mandolin pieces. He didn't do the "Pearls" medley, but he played a blues or two and a couple of Hawaiian pieces he'd learned from his work with Gabby Pahinui. It was gorgeous stuff. He played a vintage F-4 at that show.

There was also a short documentary or television segment produced about the making of Jazz. It's been 20 years since I saw it and I don't remember too much about it except that at one point Lindley was playing his blonde, three-point F-4 while Cooder played acoustic guitar. Great stuff.

mandocrucian

May-20-2005, 11:26am

Happened to see this on the Independent Lens (http://www.pbs.org/independentlens/guide.html) page (PBS)

Narrated by Cheech Marin and scored by Ry Cooder, CHAVEZ RAVINE captures how a community was betrayed by greed, political hypocrisy and good intentions gone astray. Don Normark’s haunting photographs bring back to life a Mexican American village—razed in the 1950s to build Dodger Stadium—in the heart of downtown Los Angeles.

NH

TonyP

May-25-2005, 3:38pm

I caught Ry Cooder on the local Pacifica Network radio station last nite talking about doing the music for that documentary. The songs were almost all what I would call traditional Mexican music, heavy on the accordion. Mentioned a lot of the local players of that kind of music and not being familiar with any of that stuff I was quickly lost. Kinda reminded me of when Ry was playing with Flaco Jimenez back in the day. He certainly into a mixed bag for sure.

mandroid

May-25-2005, 5:08pm

tony, what time was that on? so, perhaps, we can all look it up on :
www.KPFA.org/archives/music/archives .....

Add: found it,thanks, I'm a big fan of the audio on demand files.
http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/mandosmiley.gif

TonyP

May-25-2005, 5:54pm

Mandroid,
here (http://kpfa.org/archives/archives.php?id=16)
LaRaza Chronicles, the first one on the page, May 24th.

Lefty&French

May-29-2005, 7:51am

Eric,I hope this will help:
(Mandolin World News, winter 79/80)

David Grisman: Do you ever use any other tunings?
Ry Cooder: Yeah, I have some tunings that I like. I don't know the names of the notes off the top of my head, but I've got one where I tune the top string way down. (Retunes both E strings to B notes) There it is! You can play a lot of Mexican music with it. I used it on some record some time or another, probably on that jazz record, that Pearls thing.